How Not to Join the NRI
by Annaline
Summary: In the middle of the Yuuzhan Vong war, Reika Antares is a disgraced spacer who has run out of luck. In desperation, she takes a smuggling job and becomes more involved in the war against the Vong and the Peace Brigade than she thought possible.It's a simp
1. Chapter 1

It was the darkest, grimiest, seediest cantina that Reika Antares had ever seen. The Fuselage catered to the scum and scum hunters of the galaxy. Reika couldn't stand The Fuselage, its patrons, or even its liquor, but she needed to hide in a crowd of people who were in more trouble than she was. There was a faint scuffle from across the room, and Reika listlessly watched a human point a blaster at a Sullstan. Few of the other customers bothered to look, jaded beyond anything Reika could imagine.

After the Sullstan threw some credits at the human and the situation defused, Reika returned to looking mournfully at her empty glass and feeling sorry for herself. She kept wondering what it would be like to live in the criminal underworld, if she would ever become as cynical as the bar patrons around her. Existing in this subculture, she decided, was going to take a lot more brandy.

Another glass later, Reika was considering trying to drink her sorrows away. Two wasn't enough to get her drunk, but it wasn't enough to make her forget what had happened. To forget that her copilot ran off with her cargo and most of her credits. To forget that she had been kicked out of Starfighter Command. To forget that her family wasn't speaking to her. But mostly, she wanted to forget that she now had warrants out for her arrest.

The warrants were recent acquisitions. The first warrant for her was released when her copilot, who she had trusted above all others, ran off with their cargo of astromech droids. She certainly couldn't deliver or pay for her cargo, and since she and her copilot had both signed for the delivery, she couldn't claim it was stolen. Left with no choice, the astromech company called the authorities. In a fit of panic and stupidity, Reika fled. Now, she realized that if she had turned herself in, the police would figure it out and bring her copilot to justice. Instead, she had resisted arrest, a crime itself.

Of course, being wanted by the police now meant that she had no way to pay off her ship loans without getting caught. So she defaulted on all of them, and refused to give them back her ship. Meaning, of course, that the ship company put out a warrant for her arrest as well.

Reika heaved a deep sigh and cradled her head in her hands. It had not been a good month. After a few minutes, Reika peered out from in between her fingers at the figure now sitting across from her. "What?"

"I heard you have a ship, girlie," rasped the reptilian alien. Reika put her hands in her lap and regarded the alien with narrowed eyes. He – or at least Reika assumed it was a he – wore a stained brown flightsuit over his green scales. His vertical red eyes seemed to glance about the cantina, and oddly, looking at everything but Reika.

As surreptitiously as possibly, Reika rested her hand on top of her holstered blaster. She wasn't expecting this, and wasn't sure how to react. "So what if I do?" she asked, trying to look and sound as cocky as possible, in hopes that he would underestimate her. She very much doubted he could overestimate her.

The alien finally looked at Reika. "I've heard that you're a reliable pilot. And I need reliable pilots."

Reika repressed a snort. _Not reliable lately_, she thought. "You've heard a lot of things about me."

"I hear a lot of things about a lot of people. It's part of my job." A feral grin spread across the alien's face, revealing rows of fangs. "Now, the other part is getting people like you to work for people like me."

Reika raised an eyebrow. "You want me to work for you?"

The alien's grin faded. "I didn't come here for a chat, I came to offer you a job."

Reika might not know what the job was, but she knew what it wasn't. Legal. She kept her face as overconfident as she could as her brain warred with itself. Her family had drilled into her a hated for criminals. Smugglers, thieves, even simple vandals were always reprehensible. She could even hear her father's voice in her head, saying "No matter what their situation, there's always a moral way out." As her parents were top ranking police on the Coruscant force, she would've expected nothing else.

But they'd always seem to miss shades of gray. Once, in a fit of curiosity and sheer stupidity, she'd asked her parents what they thought of the Rebellion, since fighting the Empire was against the law. The resulting punishment taught her never to question her parents. That was when she realized for the first time that her parents might be wrong about something.

Were they wrong this time? The moral thing to do, Reika supposed, was turn herself into the police, and immediately after that, have the remainder of her savings taken away and thrown into jail. When she'd get out, she'd be worse off than she was now, possibly having to steal to survive. So the question simplified itself down to being immoral now, or being immoral later.

"What's the job?"

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Reika had to constantly remind herself not to look at her left foot. She had stuffed the 3,000 credits the alien had given her in her boot, and if she kept looking at it she feared that she might tip off a thief. The money would go a long way towards food, and a good thing too, because her stores were alarmingly low. The 5,000 credits she would receive upon her arrival on Chandrilla would be put aside for ship repairs. Reika's _Fatamorgana_ may have been her pride and joy, but it was an older model and had seen much better days – namely, the Rebellion.

Reika keyed in the code to her hangar, and walked in towards her beloved ship. It was supposedly from the Kaut Drive Yards, but Reika bet her ship had more humble origins. The _Fatamorgana _was long and angular, with mismatched parts sticking out awkwardly and other peices, like gun turrets, and an escape pod, missing entirely. Once, it had been painted black with red stripes, but the paint job had long since worn off, and only a few patches remained. Near the missing gun turrets was a semicircular splotch of red; Reika liked to pretend it was once the symbol of the Rebel Alliance.

A double click came from her personal comlink before she was even halway up the boarding ramp. That was the signal that Greenie, the alien she'd talked to in the cantina, was waiting outside with her cargo. She opened the bay doors and sure enough, Greenie was standing there, along with a Wookiee, a human, and two full hoverpallets.

"Nice to see you again, girlie," said Greenie with his fanged smile.

_Arrogant and cocky_, Reika thought as she tried to act it. _Arrogant and cocky_. "Don't call me girlie."

The Wookiee growled a warning at Reika. Greenie waved his webbed hands towards the Wookiee as Reika recoiled. "Don't worry about Churr there. He's my bodyguard. He gets a little…overprotective of me. Now, to business."

"Business," agreed Reika, keeping one eye on Churr and his human counterpart. Churr was well over two-and-a-half meters tall, with mottled black fur, and almost every inch of him was covered in bandoleers of weaponry and ammunition. The human next to him was tiny by comparison, and much less dangerous looking. His clothes were common spacer clothes, and he had no weapons – at least none that Reika could see. A beaten-up cap, pulled low over his face, did nothing to alleviate the glare he was giving Reika. He unsettled her more than Churr.

_Arrogant and cocky. Arrogant and cocky_. Reika walked over to the _Fatamorgana's_ cargo doors as casually as she could, considering that the human's gaze was boring into the back of her neck. She punched in the correct code and the cargo doors squawked open. Reika involuntarily winced before she turned back around. Her ship was not making the best impression. "Is that the only cargo you've got for me?"

Churr roared something, and a faint quirk appeared on the human's face, then the pair disappeared into the cargo hold with the hoverpallets. "Churr, be polite to the girl. She is, after all, our employee," said Greenie. His smile got bigger, which meant he was showing even more fangs.

Reika wished he'd stop smiling. "So it's just here to Chandrilla, and one of your people will be waiting for me in the Slimy Hutt cantina, right?"

Greenie did his best impression of human forgetfulness and said, "There's one thing that I forgot to mention."

Reika was dumbstruck. "You _forgot_?"

"Old age, I guess." Greenie made an expansive gesture. Churr whuffed something and the human snorted.

Reika wasn't buying it one bit. _Don't be thrown. Arrogant and cocky._ "And what exactly did you forget?"

"My manners. I have yet to introduce you to your new copilot," said Greenie, still smiling. "Come here, Kamen."

At the word "copilot", every muscle in Reika's body tensed up. "I don't need a copilot," said Reika, as icily as possible. "I work alone."

Greenie's smile turned threatening. "No one in my organization works alone," he said. "No one."

"I don't want this anymore than you do," said Kamen, scowling as he came out of the cargo hold.

It was a fight for Reika to keep from shaking and crying. All the pain from the betrayal of her last copilot was boiling to the surface. "You have no idea," she said as she turned to Greenie. "Any more suprises?" she asked, through gritted teeth.

"Just get there on time." Greenie looked at Churr and said, "We're going."

Reika watched as Greenie and the Wookiee walked out the hangar bay, then went up to close the cargo doors. She had to unclench her fist to do so, and noticed that her nails had left imprints on her palm. As soon as the doors shut, her fists clenched again and she spun on her heel to yell at Kam. "Get on the ship."

_There's always a catch_, she thought as she watched Kamen climb the boarding ramp. _Always._


	2. Chapter 2

Reika cursed and hooked her foot around the pilot's chair to anchor herself. She pulled back on a lever to kill all the lateral thrust she could, then hit the button that reversed her thrust, trying to stop the spin she was in. One of her four thrusters wasn't responding, and the other three were sluggish. The stars were gradually slowing their dizzying spin, so Reika dropped the _Fatamorgana's_ roll in to low on her priority list.

Ignoring the flashing diagnostics screen, Reika scanned the swirling stars. She was searching for any sign of the Yuzzhan Vong, be it a mine or a coralskipper. The way the lights had flickered made her suspect that it was a problem with the _Fatamorgana_, but Reika was eerily reminded of being hauled out of hyperspace by the Vong, and that wasn't an experience she wanted to repeat. There was no sign of any other craft, Vong or not, and Chandrila was visible, though it was a lot farther away than Reika would have liked.

The diagnostics screen was still flashing red, indicating that all but the vital systems had shut off. Reika tried to hit the screen to indicate that she knew unnecessary systems were down and to bring up a list of actual damage. She accidentally unhooked her foot and nearly lost her purchase.

After a couple of attempts, Reika managed to get herself back into the pilot's chair and closed the crash webbing around her. The crash webbing cut the distance she could move in half, but she wouldn't waste any more time floating around, either. The hydrospanner, which was floating near her left shoulder, helped her reach the diagnostics screen. She shut everything down but life support, and then restarted everything cold. The engines came online without a fuss, as did three of her thrusters. Everything else came in fits and starts. Reika felt her braid slowly fall down her back as the grav-generators began to kick in. Lights flickered on in her cockpit, though some didn't last for long.

As Reika undid the crash webbing, she glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw Kamen standing in the doorway, looking surlier than ever. Before he could ask, she cut him off. "I don't know. Power surge most likely."

Kamen merely glared. "Can you still land it?"

Reika stood up and walked over to the copilot's side to get at the diagnostics display easier. "The engines look ok. We've lost a thruster, but I can work around that…oh. Sithspit"

"What?" Kamen crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

"No repulsorlifts," said Reika, with a sinking feeling in her stomach. No repulsorlifts meant that it was going to be near impossible for her to land the _Fatamorgana_, especially by herself. She sighed heavily and kicked in the working thrusters, shunting power from some to others to keep the _Fatamorgana_ going in a straight line.

Reika kept one hand on the controls and used the other to rub her hazel eyes. She briefly considered telling port control what had happened, but discarded that as foolish. Port control wouldn't let the _Fatamorgana_ land, not until they made sure that her ship wouldn't damage the landing pad. That upped the chances that port control would realize that the _Fatamorgana_ was running under a fake name, which in turn would make them look at Reika's fake name. Reika's false ID was anything but airtight, and going to jail was not worth saving her ship and the landing pad some wear and tear.

But she couldn't land the ship alone. If all she had to concentrate on was flying, she could do it. However, there were simply too many things to divide her attention. Reika heaved a sigh and stared out at Chandila, which now took up a quarter of her veiwport.

Static crackled over her comm. system, then turned into a distorted voice. "Welcome to Chandrila. Please state the names of all crew, your cargo manifest, and your business here."

_Please believe me. Please. please._ "This is Branka Ignac, pilot of the _Chipper Sun._ I carry only one crew member, Donat Kormac, my – my copilot," Reika took a deep breath. Just saying that she had a copilot made her twitchy.

"_Chipper Sun_, state your business and cargo," came the voice from the comm.

She feigned irritation to help her ignore the knot forming in her stomach. This wasn't the first time Reika had flown as Branka Ignac, but she still wasn't used to it. Part of her hoped she never would be. "I was getting there. All I'm carrying is some portable housing for some of the refugees from the invasion corridor. I'm setting down here for a two or three days for repairs, then heading back out." Reika slumped. _At least one part of my story isn't a lie._

There was a nerve-wrenching moment of silence before then the comm came alive with coordinates for a descent course and a landing pad. Reika played around with the thrusters until they were moving the _Fatamorgana_ in a relatively straight course, trying to put off what she was going to have to do.

"I'll just go strap myself in," said Kamen.

Reika turned and saw him start walking away from the cockpit. The knot in her stomach got tighter and she shut her eyes tightly. "Kamen, wait."

She heard Kamen turn around. "Yes, girlie?"

Her eyes snapped open. That was malicious, and they both knew it. For the first time Reika met his gaze and held it. "That's Captain to you. And get in here."

Kamen cocked an eyebrow. "Yes ma'am," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Can't land your precious ship by yourself?"

Reika thought about telling him to go to hell, but that wouldn't land them in one piece. So Reika just bit down on her desire for payback and instead said, "Just get in the damn chair. I fly, you do everything else."

"What am I, your astromech?"

She scowled at Kamen. She had an astromech once, when she was in Starfighter Command. Toad was her nickname for her R5 unit, and he was yet another friend that she had to leave behind. Her time in the military had been hard, but they were some of the happiest memories she had. _This is no time to mourn your short military career_. "Shut up and do your job."

Kamen glared at her once more before lighting up his controls. "Yes ma'am."

Reika poked her head around the side of her boarding ramp, looking for port officials. Seeing none, she turned her attention to the damage that her rough landing had caused. There was a scratch and a few dents on the landing pad, and some of the plating had come off the _Fatamorgana_. The cosmetic damage was lighter than she had expected, and wouldn't have accounted for the banging and crackling Reika heard right after her landing. The noise had been loud enough that Reika thought it could be heard all the way to Coruscant, and she was positive that some slimy port official would hear it and would fine her for damage.

Relieved that there would be no fines – not yet, anyway – Reika began picking up the pieces of her ship. She heard rather than saw Kamen exit the _Fatamorgana_, and looked up in time to see him leave the landing pad, heading towards the city. She didn't know where he was going, and she really didn't care. He'd done his job well, and with a minimum amount of glaring at her, and that was all that really mattered. He'd even managed to coax some power out of a broken thruster and kill some of the pitching that the _Fatamorgana_ was doing. She paused, thinking. _His only problem was that he doesn't instinctively know where the _Fatamorgana's_ controls are placed, and he doesn't have a feel for the ship._ _Not yet, anyway, but it'll come in time._

Reika batted away the thought that Kamen was going to stick around, and put the plating right inside the boarding ramp. She wasn't due to meet Greenie's representative for two days, which would give her a good start on repairs. Of course, Reika had no idea where to start repairs, or even where to start looking for damage. Once she found the problem, she wasn't sure that she could find repair parts or even fix it. Reika would be the first to admit that she wasn't a mechanical genius, and the only formal training she'd ever had was on X-wings anyway. She'd managed to fix a few small problems on the _Fatamorgana_, but none had been this crucial. _Maybe Kamen is a better mechanic than I am_. Reika didn't like the thought of Kamen helping with repairs, but she didn't like the thought of being completely buried in parts she didn't know how to fix, either.

Hopelessness started to creep up on Reika, so she walked towards the cockpit. She noticed with dismay that all the lights on the right side of the hallway were out. Once she was at the cockpit, she plopped down hard in the pilot's chair and just sat there, staring at nothing, allowing her sense of foreboding to run wild. The scenarios that were running through her head went from bad to worse, and the memories of her ex-copilot were intruding far too readily.

She shook herself out of her trance, and then started up a test program on the diagnostics screen. The program would tell her exactly what wasn't working where, and occasionally it might tell her why too. In the meanwhile, she decided to go walk around the port. Get some fresh air, dispel any cabin fever, and figure out what to do next.


End file.
